


love someone for loving you

by zoeyclarke



Category: Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist (TV)
Genre: Casual Sex, Coffee Shops, College AU, F/M, Friends With Benefits, I Don't Even Know, Mutual Pining, zoey clarke is bi and i will die on that hill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-18
Updated: 2020-04-26
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:36:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23723959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zoeyclarke/pseuds/zoeyclarke
Summary: “It won’t be that long ‘til I’m back,” Max says. He perches his elbows in the open window and his chin in his hands. Zoey stares at him with her messy ponytail and round blue eyes. His t-shirt looks better on her than it ever did on him. There’s no way she knows the effect she has on him, otherwise they wouldn’t be here in this situation. If she knew, she never would have suggested it.
Relationships: Zoey Clarke/Max Richman
Comments: 29
Kudos: 105





	1. chapter one

**Author's Note:**

> this was mainly inspired by discord discussion and quarantine boredom. and i definitely wandered out of my comfort zone while writing this, so if me saying that didn't give you a clue, that means there's a couple non-explicit sex scenes here. also hopefully nobody is out of character, but i wanted to play with their personalities a bit considering they're a few years younger here. thanks to anyone who reads this, because it was pretty self-indulgent!
> 
> title taken from "best friend" by rex orange county, and lyrics in story from "san francisco" by the mowgli's.

Zoey swipes away the hair falling in her face and scowls. Max notices every little thing about her, and he’s learned to accept that; he could probably tell if she’s just trimmed her fingernails, because he can’t help but notice the severity with which they scrape down his bare back. He could also probably tell if she’s using a new brand of shampoo, because the day her ginger curls fall in his face and don’t smell of peppermint, he’ll definitely know. So it’s no wonder that he always notices her constants, the details of her that will never change, like the way her face scrunches up when she’s amused or worried or pissed.

“So,” she pants, slowing her rhythm for a moment. He moans with need, and a triumphant twinkle flashes in her eyes. “You’re _seriously_ making fun of my childhood dreams? Right _now?”_

“Sorry,” Max grunts with a wince as she shifts her position ever so slightly. She really knows how to drive him insane in the best way. “Is now a bad time?”

“Yeah, it kind of is.” Zoey leans down, her hair once again having a mind of its own and escaping from where she’d hastily tucked it behind her ears. Her eyes are narrowed into the tiniest shards of bright blue. Her nose brushes his teasingly, and the contact is enough to make him roll his hips unconsciously. She gasps and crashes her lips into his, and as far as second kisses go it’s pretty great. But as soon as she starts it, she stops it, pulling back the smallest amount to achieve heavy-lidded eye contact. “Wait, is— is it okay if I kiss you? Like, during this? Because I feel like it might be weird if we just argue the whole time—”

Max gives Zoey her answer, cupping her face in his hands and guiding her mouth back onto his. The kiss is soft and languid, made of charged hums and slipping tongues. His best friend kisses the way he always thought she would, except even better. Zoey kisses the same way she laughs, like it’s a treasure she’s hesitant to expose. 

To spend so long imagining something, and then finally experiencing it, is making Max question reality. Is this actually happening? Or will he wake up again humping his pillow with the same name as always stuck to his tongue? _Zoey. Zoey. Oh, god, Zoey._

At some point his thoughts start tumbling out of his mouth. “Zoey, Zoey,” he groans, and she picks up the pace again. 

He’s lost all control over his body; he passed that key to Zoey a while ago, and now it really settles in that she must have swallowed that key, because Max will never be able to lock himself away again. She _knows_ him now, knows him more than if he were to tell her all his biggest secrets. Sex changes things, he supposes. Zoey could be anywhere else right now if she so pleased— in fact, he thinks she’s technically supposed to be in calc III on the other end of campus— but she’s here with him, face buried in his neck as she rides his dick into uncharted heights. Max cannot believe he ever led a life having not been topped by Zoey Clarke. He never wants to live that life again.

Sex _definitely_ changes things. But one thing hasn’t changed— Max Richman and Zoey Clarke are still very much, tragically, strictly-agreed-upon _just_ friends. Just friends. No big deal.

Her hair obscures his vision when he comes, because she’s run out of breath to kiss him. Instead she has her forehead pressed against his heaving chest, puffing hushed swears into his skin. Her hair is a hazy orange filter over his eyes, sealed to his skin with sweat, soft and minty and so _Zoey_ that it makes his heart burst.

He uses every last drop of momentum in him to help her climax after he’s finished. Internally he’s cursing himself for not at least offering to use his fingers to give her a head start, but he’s still kind of new to this and so is she so maybe it isn’t so bad. When her tensed muscles dissolve to liquid under his hands, Max finally allows himself to rest. She rolls off of him, but he is still aware of her arm brushing his, burning hot and tacky with sweat. They don’t have much space to themselves on a twin XL, but it’s sure as hell more space than they would have in the backseat of her Corolla.

“So,” Max mumbles when they’re both breathing normally again. “About that whole astronaut thing. Remind me, didn’t you almost hurl on the Ferris wheel that one time? When we were only halfway up?”

“Max,” she whines. “Listen, I was into the whole...” She gestures wildly above her, grasping for words in empty air. The thin top sheet has been pulled up to cover her bare chest, but there’s no point in that because her face and voice alone could get him going a second time. “The whole _science_ aspect of it,” she says, at last finding a way to explain it. “Not, like, the _physical_ part. I’m pretty sure I would throw up in my space suit upon liftoff and drown in my own vomit.”

He rests his cheek on the pillow they’re sharing, eyes roaming over the curve of her nose and the apples of her cheeks. She won’t stop looking at the ceiling until he speaks. “Thanks for that mental image, it was lovely.”

Zoey’s glare is fierce enough to push him off this stupid narrow bed entirely. “Shut up.”

* * *

_Six hours earlier_

“I _hate_ calc III. I shouldn’t have taken a night class, plain and simple. I always fall asleep, and the professor sounds like one of the adults in the _Peanuts_ movies. I don’t understand _anything_ that comes out of his mouth.” Zoey drops her tray down on the table heavily, matching it with an equally dramatic sigh. 

Max sits across from her, straining to hear his best friend’s complaint among the overlapping voices and bustle in the student center. “Then skip,” he tells her. “Plain and simple.”

Zoey twirls a fork through her mushy spaghetti and stares at him. The expression on her face makes it seem like he just suggested she murder her whole family. “You’re kidding, right?” Pause. “Tell me you’re kidding.”

“I mean... not really, no,” he says. “Listen, Zo, I know we’re both the kind of people who would never _dream_ of missing a class, but the other day I skipped for the first time and it was... kinda awesome.”

Her jaw drops. “I can’t believe it! What did you even do?”

“I slept.”

“You slept. So... did you just miss your alarm and oversleep?” She aims an accusatory sauce-covered fork at him. “Was it an accidental skip?”

Max can’t ever withstand her for long. “Yeah,” he gives in, hanging his head. “It was accidental. But it felt good! I got more sleep that day than I have in ages. And don’t we deserve a skip, anyway? We’re so close to finals.”

 _“Exactly,_ we’re so close to finals, so we can’t afford to miss a class now.” Zoey takes a sip of her iced tea and when she sets the drink back down, there’s a smirk perched on her lips. She has a pretty mouth, Max realizes. He realized it a while ago, actually. It’s pretty and pink and always seems to have a sheen of lip gloss, even when it’s 2 AM and they’re studying and eating pie at the 24-hour diner just off campus. 

It takes him a moment to realize she’s talking again. “And what would your mom have to say, hm?” Oh, god, she’s teasing. That makes him weak. He crosses his legs firmly at the ankles and tucks them under his chair.

“Uh, she’d probably say something along the lines of ‘Maxwell, we put all this faith in you and shipped you across the damn country to attend this school, and you _dare_ to miss a one-credit 8 AM elective? How can you not appreciate _our_ efforts?’” To really sell his impression, he adopts a spot-on Brooklyn accent because he knows it’ll make Zoey double over. Sure enough, her nose scrunches up in that adorable way, and she’s attacked by a flurry of giggles that almost sends her face right into what’s left of her spaghetti.

Max has eaten almost half of his fries before she fully recovers. And when Zoey does speak again, it’s the last thing he’s expecting. “Okay, so if you wanna convince me to skip my calc class, I’ll need a good reason not to. How could I possibly spend that time doing something better?”

“You could be doing literally anything else and that would be better,” he mumbles around a bite of hamburger.

“I happen to take my education very seriously, _Maxwell,”_ Zoey says, frowning at him. “So that is the wrong answer.”

Max watches her turn up her nose and look away, putting on a false show of disinterest. Then she drinks her iced tea and he wonders how anyone can be so beautiful doing the simple act of drinking iced tea, but it’s true, Zoey does it beautifully. He gulps and pokes at his remaining fries until the cheap red-and-white checkered paper boat holding them tips over. “How about we see a movie or something?” 

They say it at the same exact time, infused with the same amount of excitement: “The new _Star Trek_ movie?”

When they’re dumping their trays a few minutes later, Zoey shoots him a miserable look. “We’re the biggest nerds in the world, aren’t we?”

Max lightly bumps her shoulder as they head for the exit. “Nothing the computer science geeks at Berk haven’t seen before.”

They say their goodbyes and ten minutes after, Max is in one of the dorm showers, trying not to touch the slimy tile walls as he strokes himself to the memory of her voice saying his full name. _Maxwell. Maxwell._ He’s never heard anything like it.

* * *

Of course, Tobin and Leif have plenty to say about the new installment of _Star Trek,_ because if the critic reviews on a film aren’t mixed, then theirs will be. “But Chris Pine is in it,” Tobin says, his lame rebuttal to Leif’s critique of the special effects.

“Oh, so why don’t you go date Chris Pine, then,” grumbles Leif, sliding his headphones back into place. It appears he’s gotten a head start on his fashion for finals week, complete with a rumpled sweater vest and jeans. Max knows if Leif is wearing _jeans,_ then there is most certainly a crisis afoot. Max personally thinks the crisis here is that Tobin and Leif have yet to get together, despite several body language clues indicating otherwise. But that’s just his opinion— and the opinion of literally everyone else in their friend group.

“Hey, you two can argue about hot actors all you want, just don’t spoil the movie for me. Zoey and I are going to see it later,” Max says. The three of them are tucked in an upstairs corner of the library to wrap up some code for a group project (Leif never fails to remind them he could have gone ahead to a higher level course, but he didn’t, which Max takes to mean Leif just _might_ tolerate him and Tobin as acquaintances). But all that comes to a screeching halt at Max’s announcement; laptop screens are swiftly shut and headphones are swatted away from ears. Max blinks at them. “What?”

Tobin’s jaw has dropped all the way to the basement. _“What?”_ he repeats, exchanging a knowing glance with Leif that makes Max’s skin prickle. “What do you mean, ‘What?’ You’re telling me that you and Zoey are going on a date?”

“Huh?” Max sputters. “N- no, it— trust me, it’s _not_ a date, I just, um... convinced her to skip a class she hates and hang out with me instead.” They still don’t seem persuaded, so he adds again, firmly, “It’s _not_ a date, guys.”

“Sure, and I _didn’t_ intern at SPRQ Point last summer,” Leif snorts.

Max glares at him. “Dude, do you have to brag about that every chance you get?”

“Yes, I do. And did that not get the point across?”

Max stands and clumsily shoves his chair back under the table, throwing his things into his bookbag. “Okay, I’m gonna leave. That way you two can be by yourselves here on your own little _date._ Since apparently two people being alone together automatically means it’s a romantic date now. How’s that?”

“We’re not on a date, bro,” Tobin calls after him as he heads for the door, earning them a few glares from silent-rule enforcers. “But _you_ will be on a date with Zoey.”

“Also, I sincerely hope you buy a new shirt for tonight, because everything you own right now is... not suitable,” Leif adds.

Max ignores them and keeps walking. He is pretty sure if he turned around right now, he would see Tobin doing an awful humping motion, so he definitely does not turn around. “It’s _not_ a date,” he hisses through his teeth, pounding down the stairs and storming out of the building. The relentless May sun does little to soothe his raging blush. “It’s _not_ a date.”

* * *

“Is this a date?”

Max startles at the question, sweat pooling on his back when he turns in his seat to face her. They’re stopped at a red light, and Zoey is doing that nervous fidgety thing she does, drumming a steady pattern on the steering wheel. She was doing that same motion the day Max met her at freshman orientation a couple years ago, except that time she was drumming a plastic cup filled halfway with lukewarm lemonade, standing on the quad under the sunny California glare. Max was hiding in the shade, leaning against one of the posts holding up the giant tent covering food and event tables. They were both alone and, as he would later find out, both equally terrified, even though she was just a hop, skip, and jump away from where she’d been born and raised while he was nearly 3,000 miles from everything he had ever known. That day Max decided he didn’t want to be alone anymore, and in the worst case they could at least feel alone together, so he approached her and said hi.

“What do you— no, this isn’t a date,” Max says, choking on the words. “Why are you even asking? I mean, we’ve seen movies together before.”

The light changes, and Zoey hits the gas a little too hard, making the seatbelt bite into Max’s chest. “Sorry,” she mumbles. “I don’t know why I asked. I was just...” A defeated sigh escapes her. “I guess I’m still feeling weird since Autumn and I broke up. I just... I don’t want you to get the impression that—”

“What impression? There’s no impression. Zero impressions here,” Max interrupts. “Really, Zo. We’re just two friends going to see a movie together. It doesn’t have to be complicated.”

“Right. No need for that,” she agrees. Silence blankets the car, and not the comforting kind. Max was planning to tell her how annoying Tobin and Leif were being earlier, how ridiculous they were to think Max and Zoey of all people would be going on a _date._ Now, however, Max wisely chooses not to mention that.

* * *

They see _Star Trek Into Darkness_ and it’s a great movie. Both of them agree that Chris Pine is pretty damn hot. The awkwardness of their earlier conversation follows them like a shadow, and somehow it’s invited back into the car with them. Zoey is driving and Max is messing with the radio when she says, “You know, we _are_ both single.”

“Yeah... that’s a well-known fact,” he laughs, hoping she won’t prod at the topic. He knows it’s only sleeping, not dead, but that doesn’t mean they have to confront it now. He’s not sure his heart can take it, especially not now when the sunset is beaming through the windshield and collecting in her hair. The sky is completely pink and orange, in fact, and Max thinks Zoey must’ve stolen all the blue from the sky and put it in her eyes. If he could ever be a poet for longer than the random abstract thought, he would write something for her. But then again, he could never get away with insisting _that_ kind of line is strictly platonic. It’s not.

“This is just a thought,” Zoey continues, treading painfully slow. Max stares at the dashboard instead of at her, turning the knob, pretending he can’t find a decent station, wishing he could disappear. “But what do you think about...” She pauses so long, Max looks up ready to check if she still has a pulse. “Ugh, I can’t even say it. Never mind.”

“It’s fine. Just say it,” Max urges. He catches her gaze and holds it steady, taking advantage of the pleading expression he knows she can’t resist. “You can’t, like, _start_ saying it then not say it at all. What’s up?”

Zoey groans and presses her forehead into the steering wheel for a moment. “Okay, but only if you promise not to hate me and never talk to me again. _And_ stop screwing with the radio.”

Max stops screwing with the radio. “I promise,” he says.

“It’s only an idea,” Zoey reminds him. “Just a harmless little idea, and if it seems like a bad one then by all means, stop me before I make a complete fool of myself.”

“Hey, I’m sure it’s not a bad idea. Just tell me. What’s the worst that could happen?”

* * *

_Two weeks later_

Max knows now that the worst possible thing that could happen was him falling in love with Zoey Clarke. But it’s difficult not to love her when she’s _her,_ and if he were to calculate the exact moment he lost his heart to her, it would be the first day of freshman orientation. So maybe it was meant to be a disaster from the start.

Friends with benefits. Max has come to hate the term. He hates that he loves how she looks when she comes all undone underneath him. He hates himself for wanting to tell her how much he loves her. The school year is over. They’re one year away from a degree, twenty-one years old, and Max can’t stop being a fool.

He spends a good portion of his final hours in San Francisco with his head between her thighs. Zoey whimpers when she comes, fisting her hands in his hair. Max raises his head and peers at the time on the bedside clock. “I have to be at the airport in a half-hour,” he points out.

She sighs and to his surprise, she tugs him closer to her, resting his cheek on her bare stomach where her t-shirt rode up. Her skin is warm and soft and it’s enough to make him want to cancel his flight back home. “You should stay,” she murmurs. “I don’t want you to go.”

“I don’t wanna go either,” Max tells her, lips moving against her navel. “New York doesn’t really feel like home anymore.”

“Then don’t go.”

“I have to, Zo. If I don’t they’ll presume I’m dead and call the entire SWAT team to campus.”

“But I—” Her breath catches and she doesn’t try to go on. They lay there quietly, legs tangled in sheets, her hand stroking his hair while tinny alt rock plays from an old MP3. He’s facing the foot of the bed, so he can’t see Zoey’s face. He wonders if she’ll cry when he leaves this time. She didn’t the past two years, at least not to his knowledge. Zoey tends to be a behind-closed-doors crier, though. Max grew up in a household where male tears were equivalent to a grave sin, and now he feels like he cries all the time as if to make up for a dry, suppressed childhood. There’s a pressure building up behind his eyes now, so he tries to focus instead on her flexing toes with the chipped magenta nail polish.

Through the closed door, Max can hear Zoey’s roommate Mo shuffling around in the kitchen. She only moved in about a month ago, deciding she wanted her own place separate from her parents’ to go back to. Max is glad for that, because he isn’t sure either of them could stay quiet enough to successfully fool around with her parents right downstairs. Actually, Max doubts he could even find the guts to risk sneaking a condom into the Clarke residence, let alone having Zoey ride him on her childhood bed with a shelf of all her old science fair trophies as a backdrop. In that case, the backseat of her car probably would’ve been a better option.

Luckily they’re here instead, and though the place is cramped and there are countless cracks snaking across the ceiling from earthquakes past, there are worse places to be. And Mo is a very understanding roommate, but he makes it clear that it’s no secret what Zoey and Max do in the privacy of her room. The first time Max came over, Mo eyed him up and down, rolled his eyes, and said, “Studying, my _ass._ While you two are ‘studying’ together, I’ll be skydiving, alright?”

Max forces himself to get up after a few more minutes. As soon as he’s no longer touching Zoey, he misses her body heat and shallow breaths. He sits on the edge of the bed and tugs on his shoes. The t-shirt he came here wearing is currently on Zoey, so in lieu of taking it back he shrugs on the button down he’d originally layered over it. He does up every button except the top one, then goes to shut off the old MP3 player sitting on the dresser. Zoey told him once that before she met him, she never listened to music much, not even in the car. Max could never make himself enjoy silence, so if he can help it he prefers not to spend a single second of his life without some kind of noise. He thinks he’s brought her onto his side.

_Do you feel the love? I feel the love_

_C’mon, c’mon, let’s start it up_

_Let it pour out of your soul—_

The song cuts off and Max pockets the device, then also his hands while he’s at it. He stands by the door, bag slung over his shoulder, watching Zoey stuff her feet into the well-loved pair of old-lady slide-on Skechers she likes. “I’ll drive you to the airport,” she says, as if it wasn’t already wordlessly agreed upon earlier.

“Thanks,” he says. He wishes there were more elaborate synonyms for “thank you,” but he figures those elaborate synonyms are found in actions instead. Max likes to use words, though, likes to say things and mean them from the bottom of his heart. Zoey is the one, he thinks, who can say things with her eyes and her smile and her hands.

The entire car ride, Max tries to fix everything in his mind. He wants things between them to go back to the way they were, before the sex and the feelings and other annoying shit. But he leaves the apartment in love with Zoey Clarke and when they pull up at the drop-off area twenty minutes later, Max is still very much in love with Zoey Clarke.

“We’ll keep in touch,” he says to her, unbuckling his seatbelt. “We always do.”

“I know,” she mutters. She flicks on the hazards and hurries to pop the trunk. Max circles around to the back of the car, retrieves his suitcase and duffel bag, then returns to the rolled-down passenger window.

“It won’t be that long ‘til I’m back,” Max says. He perches his elbows in the open window and his chin in his hands. Zoey stares at him with her messy ponytail and round blue eyes. His t-shirt looks better on her than it ever did on him. There’s no way she knows the effect she has on him, otherwise they wouldn’t be here in this situation. If she knew, she never would have suggested it. They’re friends, but they’ll never be just _friends_ again.

Zoey rubs her nose and looks at her lap. “I’ll miss you,” she says.

“I’ll miss you too,” he says. Max wants to use more words, but there are none. Zoey doesn’t need more words. She’s refusing to meet his gaze, staring down and rubbing her nose, and that tells him all he needs to know. In place of what they both want to hear, Max adds, “I’ll call you as soon as I land.”

He stays at the curb and watches until her car turns out of view. Two hours later, he boards the plane still in love with Zoey Clarke.


	2. chapter two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello again! i appreciate the feedback i received on the first chapter. i debated making this a longer thing, but i have other projects i want to get to, so this little fic is going to end with part two. this was an experimental piece for me to see how the characters would respond to a slightly different environment than in canon, and i think i've written all i want to write for this one. thanks so much for reading!
> 
> lyrics in this chapter from "all the things she said" by simple minds.

Summer has never agreed with Zoey’s hair. She always tries to arrange a truce with it: nothing but sloppy ponytails or fraying French braids for three months straight. Good. Great. Fine. But the California heat yet again turns up its nose at her peace offering and chooses to torture her instead. It’s the third morning in June when she steps out of the shower and unravels her hair from its towel turban to reveal a frizzy mess. 

“Oh. My. _God,”_ Zoey groans, tugging at the mats. She feels like a poodle that just had a traumatic experience at the groomer’s. “I swear, I am going to just chop it _all_ off,” she growls, raking through her allotted drawer to find her detangling comb. “Fuck it, maybe I’ll even shave myself bald.”

“If you’re gonna do that,” Mo’s voice comments through the bathroom door, “then for the love of Vine, _please_ wait so I can get it on video.”

Zoey sighs, giving the door a little kick as if it could scare her roommate away. “You’re _not_ gonna post me on Vine.”

“What can I say? Embarrassment is what brings in the views these days, Zoey Descha- _no.”_

Zoey snorts, starting the long process of smoothing out her hair. “Zooey Deschanel reference, huh? That’s, like, not even close to punny. Losing your touch already, Mo?”

Zoey only met Mo in her American Lit distribution course at the beginning of last semester, but he never allowed any space for awkwardness between them. Zoey decided to finally move into an apartment because as much as she loves her parents, she couldn’t face another summer of grill leftovers for every lunch and dinner, bug-bitten hiking trips, and robbing Costco of all its free samples. If it weren’t for Mo, it might’ve taken a while to find someone willing to take in a roommate. Tobin and Leif are too busy being “just bros in their bro-only bro cave” (Tobin’s words, of course, not Leif’s), Autumn is too busy pretending Zoey doesn’t exist, and Simon is too busy disappearing off to London for the summer to visit his long-distance girlfriend Jessica. (And Max, as always, is too busy taking his crooked smile and spearmint gum cologne across the country to a city he loathes.) 

Mo is a musical theater major to Zoey’s computer science, so they’re a _little_ bit different. Still, in just a month of living together, they are already at the “talking to each other through the bathroom door while one is peeing” and “sharing a pint of Ben & Jerry’s at two in the morning” stage. One of these days, Zoey expects Mo will just burst through this door (lock is broken, anyway) and start doing his makeup next to her in the cramped space while she brushes her teeth.

The door grunts in its frame as Mo leans against it. “Don’t talk down on Zooey, Zoey. It’s a shame you still have yet to appreciate the charms of _New Girl._ It is _very_ white but _very_ good.”

Zoey grits her teeth, guiding the comb through another tangle. “Sorry, but Emily is the better sister, and _Bones_ is the superior show. _”_

“Uh-huh,” Mo says. “Sure, you keep on thinking that. Anyway, you can’t blame me if I’m losing my creativity a little bit. This heat is getting to me.”

After many more tugs and tears, Zoey finally finishes straightening out the mess on her head, which could be compared to the icky mop she performs a not-so-smooth tango with every evening at work. Tugging on her Golden Gate Grind tee and stepping into a pair of jeans, she emerges from the bathroom. Mo steps aside when she nudges open the door, clucking in dismay at the rough way Zoey tames her hair back into a damp ponytail.

Before he can remark _again_ about how “gorgeous carrot locks like that do _not_ deserve to be abused, Zo-Zo,” Zoey mutters out a new complaint that’s been waiting in the queue in her tired brain. “You know, central air _would_ be pretty cool. Better than having that one sputtering window unit that’s older than my parents.”

“I know you’re over it, girl, you and me both. But what am I supposed to do, become the building manager and start caring about the comfort of my tenants?” Mo asks. Zoey snorts, gathering up her bag and keys at the front door. She can feel her friend’s frown aimed at her back while she prepares to leave for the day. “And what about the most important meal of the day, Noah’s Clarke?”

Zoey turns around to shoot him a look, and they both grimace at the even worse nickname. “I’ll eat breakfast at work, Mo,” she tells him. “I promise.”

* * *

Work sucks. It sucks most days now, because Zoey can’t follow the “don’t visit your ex at work” rule. Fortunately, she does manage to squeeze into a decent parking spot not far from GGG. Zoey times how long it takes herself to parallel park, just to pay homage to Max, who teasingly started the tradition. It takes nine minutes to perfect her placement, which is quick for her. But her luck ends there.

She’s been standing in the back room for maybe five seconds, struggling to tie on her apron, when Joan appears from her tiny closet of an office and hums in disapproval. “Jeans,” she says simply, breezing past Zoey to scribble next week’s schedule on the whiteboard by the sink. 

“Oh!” Zoey squeaks. Time and again, she’s amazed by her boss’s ability to materialize out of thin air at the worst possible times. Zoey peers down at her light wash jeans, which are a skinny fit but definitely unripped. “I’m, uh, I’m sorry, Joan. I thought you said jeans were—”

“I changed my mind,” Joan hums, capping her dry erase marker. She spins back around to face her most apprehensive employee, aiming the marker at Zoey like a scolding index finger. “So next time, this”— she slowly tilts the marker up and down to indicate Zoey’s entire rumpled outfit— “won’t do. Capeesh?”

“Capeesh,” Zoey mumbles miserably, finally tying a knot with her apron strings. Or, at least, she thinks she does, until she goes out behind the front counter and the knot comes undone while she’s trying to toast a bagel for a customer.

Zoey bites back a frustrated sigh, her hands darting behind her back to redo it. But when they arrive there, she finds a set of familiar nimble fingers already fixing the knot for her.

“Joan’s in a bad mood again today,” Autumn mutters, pulling Zoey’s apron strings into a flawless bow. “I think it’s the whole divorce thing.”

Zoey thinks of the couple of times she’s had to serve Joan’s husband, who makes for a very disgruntled customer— the kind who insists on the espresso machine being taken apart and thoroughly cleaned before his drink can be made. (Zoey can handle taking apart microwaves, but her expertise ends there.) Personally, she thinks Charlie is kind of a major asshole and it’s good for Joan to rid him from her life. Out loud, Zoey says, “Yeah, I noticed. She kind of decided we’re not allowed to wear jeans anymore _again,_ and she decided it when she saw me, so...” She’s proud of herself for finding conversation so easy with Autumn this morning. Maybe today won’t be so bad.

She turns around, the small of her back pressed into the counter while Autumn stares her down. “Thanks,” Zoey says. “For, um, tying my...” She trails off, knowing Autumn gets the point when she nods. Her long blonde hair is woven into Dutch braids today, safe from potential frizzing in the summer heat. They’ve been broken up for about five weeks now, but that doesn’t mean Zoey can’t still find her to be incredibly attractive. Too attractive for Zoey’s own good, at least.

“So,” Autumn clears her throat, reaching around Zoey to grab a paper cup. Zoey’s eyes follow her as she moves farther down the counter to fill it with hazelnut roast. “Max is back in New York, right?”

Max’s name lances through her like a white-hot laser beam. “Yeah,” Zoey says. She turns back to watch the toaster. “Been for about a week now.”

Autumn fits a lid onto the coffee cup, calls out a name, hands it to a customer, and returns to lean a hip against the counter in under ten seconds. She’s always been better at this job than Zoey, who could accomplish all of that in maybe a minute (those stupid plastic lids are difficult to get on, okay?) “And how long have you two been sleeping together?” Autumn asks next, and shit, maybe she’s better than Zoey is at picking up on subtlety, too.

The bagel halves pop up, and without thinking Zoey reaches for them, consequently burning her thumb and index finger to a crisp. Joan seemingly drops out of the sky next to her, swiping the contaminated bagel slices out of Zoey’s hand and right into the garbage. “For the millionth time, Zoey, you use the _tongs_ to pick up a customer’s food, not your grubby little fingers. Good _god.”_

When she’s gone again, Autumn steps up next to Zoey and drops a fresh bagel into the toaster. They brush elbows, and Zoey forces herself to give in and meet her ex’s surprisingly affectionate gaze. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you. I thought it was common knowledge.”

Zoey sighs. “It’s not, at least as far as I knew. But... I guess it isn’t much of a secret.” 

“It really isn’t,” Autumn says. “I mean, last time Max came by here, you took one look at him and dropped that to-go tray of frappes, remember?” A spark of amusement flashes in her eyes, and Zoey can’t help the slight giggle that escapes her pursed lips. “I think we’ll be scrubbing whipped cream residue off the ceiling until the day we graduate.”

“Or until the day we _retire,”_ Zoey supplies, and they both chuckle. It’s hesitant and guarded, but it’s a laugh, and with her best friend gone for the summer, Zoey can use a laugh.

She does remember that day. Max strolled in and ordered a black coffee, so Zoey got him a vanilla latte because she knows the meanings behind all his annoying code words. He stood on the other side of the pastry display, fingers drumming a melody on the glass lightly enough to not leave smudges. When Zoey finished making his drink, topping it off with the ugliest swirl of steamed milk she could muster, she found him singing along softly to the 80s song playing overhead.

_Oh, to be near you in the first morning light_

_I’d be with you, I dream about you_

_If I could leave here, I would leave here tonight_

_I’d be with you, I’d stay with you tonight_

Max struck a pose, arms held out wide before he reached to take his liquid sugar from her. _“Tonight,”_ he mouthed, swaying side to side. _“Anywhere you go, you know I’ll still be waiting...”_

* * *

“I can’t believe you want to take Emily out _fishing,_ Dad,” David whines, storming through the open sliding glass door onto the patio. “Are you insane?”

Zoey watches him set down the pitcher a little too hard on the table, making some lemonade splash over the top. She sighs and leans into the kitchen to grab some paper towels.

“What’s the matter with fishing?” Mitch protests. He stands over the grill, humming the _Jeopardy_ tune to himself as he waits for the burgers to be done. “It seems like you two are getting serious, and I think she has a right to participate in our tradition. It can be like her induction ceremony into the Clarke family.”

“Okay, first of all, it’s _your_ tradition, not any of ours’,” David corrects, dodging the wadded-up paper towel ball Zoey sends sailing at him. “Mom always gets a little motion sick on the boat, I hate the bugs, and when she’s in the sun Stinkyface burns faster than her green bean casserole.”

“Hey!” Zoey interjects. “We do _not_ talk about that Thanksgiving.”

“Second of all,” he continues, “you do realize my girlfriend and I are fresh out of _law_ school, right? We’re professionals. We barely spend a minute not wearing suits. You expect Em to just throw on a fishing hat and khakis and sing John Cougar Mellencamp with you for five hours on the water?”

Maggie shakes her head at him, emerging from the house to set a bowl of salad on the table. “You know, honey, you two _could_ stand to go out and have some fun. It’s _summertime._ Live a little. Loosen that tie,” she says, reaching out to pull at David’s tie so it’s not snug against his neck. “I don’t know how you can breathe when it’s so tight like that.”

“Yeah, Davy,” Zoey pipes up, a mischievous slant to her brow as she catches her brother’s glare, “believe me, we all know how much you hate fun, but there’s no need to complain about it. I mean, ‘you do realize’”— she wiggles her fingers in air quotes, mocking David’s condescension— “twenty years have passed since you were the age you’re acting now, right?”

David’s scowl deepens, but before he can hit her with a biting retort, Mitch raises his hands in surrender. “Alright, alright, fine. We can take you and Emily to a nice restaurant, and...” He turns to gesture hopefully at his daughter with the spatula. “Zoey, you can go fishing with me next week?”

Zoey swallows her bite of watermelon and frowns, watching the juice dribble down her arm. “Oh! Actually, um...” She hesitates long enough for her mom to stop scurrying between the kitchen and patio and stare at her in concern.

“What is it, Zobug?”

“I’m... I’m going to see Max,” Zoey mumbles, tucking stray hair behind her ear.

Mitch’s eyebrows inch toward his hairline. “In New York?”

Zoey shifts her weight in the flimsy patio chair, pulling her knees to her chest. “Yeah, I, uh... I may have impulse-bought a plane ticket last night, and I may be flying there in two days, and there’s a _chance_ he has no idea I’m coming.”

“You know what a phone is, right?” David asks. “It’s really neat. You can, like, call people and tell them things on it.”

“Shut up,” Zoey sighs. “Anyway, I think I want to surprise him.”

Maggie tilts her head thoughtfully. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

“It’s _Max,”_ Zoey answers, and there’s nothing more to say.

* * *

Two days later, it’s too late for it to be a _bad_ idea, Zoey thinks. Seeing her best friend can’t _not_ be a good thing, because her best friend is Max and Max is always glad to see her, right? So this can’t be a bad idea, not just because she spent her last five paychecks on this ticket.

Zoey stares out the window of the plane, her eyes drifting over the wing and the engine attached below it. Briefly she imagines what would happen if the engine burst into flames and they all went down right now, crashing somewhere in a cornfield in Nebraska. How long would it take Max to find out, to realize that she died coming to see him? Zoey shifts her gaze to her hands, clasped and shaking in her lap. The person next to her starts snoring loudly in her ear, and now she thinks she might have a new cause of death on this plane.

Hours later they land at JFK Airport, and Zoey blinks the haze of sleep out of her eyes to see the lights on the runway outside blinking back at her. Then she’s standing inside the airport, and suddenly Zoey wishes she had planned this better. Her family travelled plenty when she was younger, but somehow they never ended up in New York City, so this is all foreign to her.

She calls a taxi service, waits and sweats at a curb for thirty minutes, and pays an exorbitant amount for a beat-up Crown Vic to take her to the address Max gave her a while ago. The cab pulls up in front of a well-maintained brownstone in the Upper West Side, and before Zoey heaves her duffel up the stairs to the front door, she hesitates. Is this crazy?

She spins slowly, doing a full 360 to take in her surroundings: car horns blasting, tree branches heavy with green leaves rustling overhead, humidity thick in the air and plastering her exhausted, drooping ponytail to the back of her neck. It’s close to nine in the morning, which means it’s not even six yet back home, but Zoey slept on the plane for a reason.

She goes up to the door and knocks, and when Max answers she could almost collapse in relief.

“Zoey?” he asks, shock stretching his features into almost cartoonish proportions. “What are you—”

She drops her bag and pulls his lips down to hers. Yeah, this is definitely crazy.

* * *

Eager to escape his overbearing family, Max takes Zoey to spend every waking moment roaming the streets, the halls of a museum, the aisles of a store. Max throws around his credit card in sophisticated little cafes without batting an eyelash, and pulls out thick wads of twenties whenever paying a street vendor, insisting they keep the change.

Every minute besides that is spent in his car, which remains safely parked in a gated alley. It’s a metallic gray BMW that likely doesn’t have more than a few thousand miles on its odometer, and with its pristine leather interior and new car smell, it puts her high school graduation gift Corolla to shame.

“I don’t know why you decided to come here,” Max tells her that evening in the backseat of the BMW. “But I’m not gonna question it.”

“I missed you,” Zoey says simply. She’s stretched out across the backseat, her head in his lap. “Summers never feel right anymore, not since I’ve met you, because you’re always gone the whole time, and it’s the worst.” It’s funny, because Zoey is almost ninety percent sure she sacrificed her job at Golden Gate Grind to drop everything and fly three thousand miles. Her family, especially David, thinks she’s gone a little bit crazy. Mo told her that he understood, but that she will still have to pay her half of the rent on time even if she isn’t there. Despite all of that, though, here she is in New York, and suddenly summer isn’t the worst anymore.

For a while Zoey herself wasn’t sure what to think about her decision, but about halfway through the flight here she realized she probably likes Max Richman a little more than she wants to. It was when the plane touched down that she realized she _definitely_ likes Max Richman a _lot_ more than she wants to, and that it actually _is_ a bad idea to come here and feed her growing adoration.

“So... you didn’t just miss the sex?” Max asks.

Zoey snaps upright, crouching at the opposite side of the backseat from him. “No,” she says immediately, looking away from those piercing brown eyes. “No, that’s not it at all. Why—”

“What are we, Zo?” he murmurs softly. The words drop heavy like a boulder in the empty seat between them. When she doesn’t offer an answer right away, he continues, “Because I... I’ve been thinking about us, a lot. And I— I think I’m in love with you.”

Zoey stares at him. A moment ago her heart was slamming in her chest, but now she’s numb and it might as well be gone. Or maybe she never had a heart in the first place. The word “friends” is perched on her tongue, poised and ready to be launched as a missile into Max’s soul. _Friends. We’re just friends. That’s it._ And that’s what she keeps thinking even as they find each other again, entangling fingers in hair and misplacing clothes. As always, Max thinks of her first, and he lets his thumb circle lazily over her clit for a few extra minutes until she comes a second time. _God,_ Zoey thinks, her spine pressed into fine German leather, _is he trying to kill me?_

 _No,_ a small voice corrects her. _He’s trying to love you._

* * *

Max’s twenty-second birthday is at the beginning of next semester, on a freezing day in September. Zoey works a quiet shift at the Grind, then runs through the rain to her car. 

A few hours later, Max comes through the door to her and Mo’s apartment to cheers of “Surprise!” Mo is serving as ameuter DJ for the party, mixing up a playlist that will likely earn them noise complaints from multiple neighbors. Tobin is in the middle of chugging fruit punch on a dare from Simon, so his shout of “Surprise!” comes with a red spray that hits several people. Leif is glowering in the corner because he can’t hold his boyfriend’s hand while he’s chugging fruit punch. Autumn is sending knowing smirks in Zoey’s direction while helping Mo set up the karaoke machine. 

And when Zoey looks at Max, he’s wearing the lopsided smile and her favorite button down of his, as if he knew this party was coming. Hell, maybe he did, because Tobin _is_ bad about keeping secrets. Zoey pulls him into a hug and doesn’t let go for a while, because she’s so glad Max is here in San Francisco. But even if he was anywhere else, she knows she would be right there with him.

When Simon ends a call some time later reporting that the pizza will arrive late, there’s a collective groan from everyone crammed in the apartment.

“Sorry,” Zoey says, tilting her head up to see Max’s face. They’re sprawled on the couch together, resting after an intense karaoke session. “I should’ve ordered it earlier, I—”

“It’s okay,” Max tells her, looking down at her the same time she looks up. “I can wait.” His hand crawls away from the arm of the couch to link with hers. _Yeah,_ Zoey thinks, _he’s waited for me, so he has the patience of a saint._

Until the pizza arrives nearly an hour later, Zoey’s head doesn’t leave its position on Max’s lap. When the doorbell rings, they rise from the couch and stretch stagnant muscles. The murmur of the party around them dips and swells, and in between bites of mozzarella and sips of punch Tobin swears he’s never touching again, Max leans down to whisper something in Zoey’s ear.

And because they’re trying out this thing called dating, it’s like second nature for her to say it back: “I love you, too.”


End file.
